The preparatory meeting for National High School Programming Contest (NHSPC) -2017 held today at Software Technology Park (Janata Tower), Kawran Bazar on 4th December 2016 with the presence of the honorable ICT State Minister Junaid Ahmed Palak. The acting secretary of ICT Division started the meeting with the permission of the ICT Minister. He requested Mr. Munir Hasan, the joint secretary of Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN) to continue the meeting. He then showed a video documentary on the NHSPC 2015-2016 and brought the main activities and achievements to the audiences’ attention.

An impact video of NHSPC was shown in the meeting where a rural poor girl named Rakhi, by her own effort, learnt coding on her parents’ smartphone and then later became the first in the Jessore regional programming contest in 2016. She is so passionate that she dreams to work at Facebook or Google in her future. The significant story of Rakhi drew the audiences and got a huge applause.

However, the detailed plan for 2017 NHSPC was shared with the participants and there came some decisions with the democratic participation of the active stakeholders.

It is decided to reach 2021 schools in 2017 including the 2001 Sheikh Russel Digital Lab. The National High School Programming Contest 2017 will have 2 new programs like girls programming contest and kid programming festival. Ten winners will be taken in IOI and there will be a provision for all the winners to continue their programming practice for not losing interesting in computer programming.

The honorable minister proposes to reach 15,000 schools in 2019 whereas this number will be 21,000 in 2021.Keeping the vision of Digital Bangladesh 2021, the NHSPC is contributing a lot to build a digital Bangladesh.

Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN) keeps organizing ICT and computer programming camp in many different districts in Bangladesh. With the continuation of this awareness raising programs, it has been successfully organizing Grace Hopper Girls Programming Training Camp (GHGPTC) from 2015 in different parts of the country including Khulna, Chittagong, Dinajpur, Shariatpur, Mymensingh and Faridpur.

The Grace Hopper Girls Programming Training Camp (GHGPTC) teaches girls programming with hands-on activities and practices. Recently, BdOSN has organized a Grace Hopper Girls Programming Training Camp in Comilla. Starting on the 24th November with the presence of Anayat Hossain Rajib; the Joint Secretary of BdOSN, the 3 days long camp was held at the University of Bangladesh Army International and Science and Technology in the Comilla cantonment and has ended on the last 26th. A total number of 40 participants participated in the camp and it was managed by 4 young and energetic maintainers. A programming competition was also arranged at the end of the camp.Moythry Manir Samia from ICT department of Comilla University became the proud winner.

A participant named Jakia Sultana said "Thank you to BdOSN for organizing such an effective programming training camp for us. I'm glad that I could participate in the camp and I hope there will be more camps like this for girls in the days ahead ".

BdOSN has a long-term plan to go with the same initiative at Rajshahi, Rangpur, Pabna, Sylhet, CoxBazar, Rangamati, Tangail, Barisal, Gajipur and Noakhali.

HSTU Open Source Network (HSTU-OSN) of Haji Mohammad Danesh Science and Technology University has announced its new committee on 29th November 2016. The 2016-17 session of HSTU Open Source Network (HSTU-OSN) aims to move forward with Software freedom that has been announced under the Bangladesh Open Source Network this day. The associate professor of CSE department and former moderator of HSTU Md Delwar Hossain, assistant professor of CSE department and founder Ashish Kumar Mandal, and lecturer of ECE department Tanjina Sultana Dristy were present in the announcement event.

The newly formed working committee was moderated by Delwar Hossain. Tanjina Sultana Dristy has been elected as the new moderator of HSTU. The committee announced Farhad Moktar as chairman, Ashiqur Rahman as vice-chairman and Fahim Ahmed as general secretary. Students of CSE department have been appointed in some different positions in the ceremony. Moreover, students from different courses have been appointed as the HSTU student representative.

Besides announcing the committee role players, the speakers also discussed about the requirements of using open source software and shared about the activities of HSTU Open Source Network. They also motivated the participants to spread out the open source movement in the community. The new moderator HSTU Open Source Network emphasized the history of open source in her speech and talked about the safety of using open source software. She also believed that the new HSTU community will contribute to various social contexts in the days ahead. She added that the community would play a special role to meet the social responsibilities and it would help the involved students in their career. Being optimistic, she invited more students to come forward and be a part of the HSTU Open Source Network.

Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN) has been organizing ICT and computer programming camps in different districts in Bangladesh to inspire the girls in computer programming.

With its continuation of awareness building camps, BdOSN is going to organize Grace Hopper Girls Programming Training Camp in the University of Bangladesh Army International and Science and Technology in the Comilla cantonment. The 3-day long programming camp will start on the following 24th November and be continued to 26th of November. The participants will get an opportunity for a hands-on activity with the algorithm and other related topics in the computer programming in these days.

Grace Hopper Girls Programming Training Camp in CIU

Grace Hopper Girls Programming Training Camp is a program under #missingdaughter initiative. The aim of this initiative is to bring more girls in the technology and ICT field and support them to overcome the fear with programming. The continuous effort is helping the community to build a women-generated group in the programming contest nationally and internationally.

For example, in the ICPC of Dhaka site this year, 1666 girls teams have participated that was only 125 in the last year. Even the girls who just would attend the university programming classes now has come forward and started to break that chain.

BdOSN has a long vision to reach each and every girl from all over Bangladesh and support them to be in the ICT field as much as possible.

However, the interested people are requested to register for the camp in the link below: